[Open] Irregular Mages Ahoy

[justice_is_blond]

WHO: Anders and Thor and You!
WHAT: Various adventures and misadventures
WHEN: Early to mid Bloomingtide
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Gonna put up some basic openings here first for either, then specific headers. Hit me up on plurk (Nadat) or Discord (Nadat#4647) if you'd like something for your dude!

Anders 1. The Clinic

There's a pause in the regular flow of traffic, enough that Anders is free to clean some of the slates leftover from an earlier class and straighten chairs and tables, moving steadily through the Clinic and greeting people by name or nod.

Anders 2. The Gallows Herb Garden

He's not alone as he tends to the plants and gathers a few sprigs of what the Infirmary's short on. Sprawled out in the sun, belly-up, is a tuxedo cat that's half-watching everything. A bit more active is a large orange fluff of a cat that's sneaking gathered herbs out of Anders' basket and piling them off to the side whenever Anders isn't looking.

Anders 3. Infirmary

He's here as usual, healing, providing potions and medical advice. Anyone dropping by gets seen to quickly, regardless of how he might feel about them. Any Rifters, though, get an additional question.

"Does your world have equality? Or some semblance of it?"

--

Thor 1. Tavern

Half the taverns in Kirkwall are closed to him, Tevinter, past conflicts, all that, but that just means that he's all the more happy this one is welcoming. Thor is loud and large and in a very good mood as he drinks his ale and chats with anyone who looks like they might tolerate a conversation.

In fact, if someone, some human or dwarf, is sitting alone, Thor will come over to their table, plop down, and order them a drink on him.

Thor 2. Lowtown

"It can't cost that much," Thor says to the shopkeeper, eyes a little narrow. He has a feeling the guy is trying to rob him... but Thor hasn't spent a lot of time handling day-to-day funds and expenses before. It's all been estate stuff that he signs off on. Haggling for a rather nice-looking cloak is a new challenge, and he finds himself glancing around to see if anyone will help weigh in on the topic.

Thor 3. Gallows

Evening is falling as Thor takes a guard post by the Gallows docks, leaning against a handy bit of wall and actively watching the people coming and going.

"Nearly curfew," he calls out to what looks like a Rifter considering getting on the boat. There's no heat to his voice. In fact, it sounds a little curious. He's wondering how the Rifters are taking the recent news and if it's chafing just yet.

--
[Feel free to make your own prompt for Anders or Thor too if you'd like.]

Comments

[thorndergod]

He eyes the elf, amused and showing it openly as he shrugs his large shoulders. This is another of the Galadriel sort, it seems... though her countrymen don't seem to go around quite this armed and bristling. Maybe not exactly her sort after all.

"Do you want me to have plans?" he calls back. The South is trying to impose new restrictions, and to Thor this has all sorts of potential. He's no political mastermind, but this is obviously going to be a point of contention, and if the Southern Chantry explodes over it that's a win for Tevinter. "I am supposed to stop you, but if you insist on climbing into the boat the guards on the other side can push you back in. Your regard or disregard for your own safety is your choice."

The Inquisition is needed to defeat Corypheus. He believes that absolutely. But after? It becoming a mess is promising.

[aenseidhe]

"What's the point of saying anything if you don't have plans?" Put up or shut up, is basically what he's saying, head tilted like he's wondering at the actual threat Fabio McShinychest here really poses. He's certainly tall and willowy enough to be one of Galadriel's, but those ones all look elegant and flawless. Iorveth is a rough thing, and when he pulls at the piece of his headscarf covering his eye to tuck that piece into the rest of it, keeping only his hair back, there's an empty, burned out eyesocket underneath, with a gross scar stretching jagged down the side of his face, to his lips. Nothing you'll see on Thranduil or the others.

"That, however, would assume it's the boat I'm planning on getting on." It isn't.

Which is starting to look clear enough in how he's detaching the sword belt at his hips, tugging the quiver away and the holster for his bow over his shoulder. The quiver alone is dropped onto the deck at his feet, but the swords and bow are wrapped up together with the leather straps, cinching them together tightly so they're a single stable unit, before attaching them secure to his back again. The arrows he can always make more of, but like hell he's leaving his bow or swords behind for whatever moron human to happen upon.

Three guesses where he's planning on going, and the first two don't count.

[thorndergod]

...Is the elf going to swim? Thor is torn. He wants to see the elf jump into the frigid water and probably realize he's made a horrible mistake, but what if this one is used to water like that? He does have a job to do even if he'd prefer to watch the Inquisition stumble.

Thor sighs and comes over toward the elf, reaching out to thunk a large hand on his shoulder. It's not out of friendliness. The weight of it is meant to discourage this elf from being rash, as elves are wont to do. They need guidance and help, all aside from Galadriel's group, and their lack of it is part of why the South is such a mess.

"I am only in these lands for as long as the Inquisition does not have reason to demand my departure, which means I am not going to allow you to jump in and swim from the island. Turn around, go inside, and enjoy your evening off. Eat their food and lounge in their hot water. You may as well make them pay for the restrictions the South is so fond of."

[aenseidhe]

The elf is 100% absolutely going to swim, and if Thor wants to stop him, he'll have to come with him. Kirkwall is a coastal town, and the water not so frigid as it would be in the Sunless Lands, Iorveth's definitely swam through colder. He hadn't planned a dip today, and if he wanted to go herb hunting, he'd have done it when the sun was higher in the sky. But. Thor just had to go touch him. And now we have a problem.

Iorveth is easily four times this human boy's age. It's very good he kept his thought about elves needing guidance to his own head, else this might not have been only a quick swim. It might have included a drowning.

"Their food taste like shit, and their baths are filled with the humans just as willing as you to remind strangers where their place ought to be. The fish, at least, are blessedly silent." Besides, he said it's nearly curfew. Meaning, not quite yet. He has time enough to piss someone off first, and given the man is attempting to touch his person without permission, oh, he's definitely going to make his night more annoying that it was previously. Time to work for that visa, Fabio.

It's a quick duck to sweep his head under Thor's arm to the opposite side and sharp smack from his opposite palm to the back of Thor's elbow, an easier means to push the hand off his person than trying to smack it outward from Thor's body - arms like to fold in, bodies are funny that way. Reaching out the other hand behind the man's back, it hooks into the metal armhole on the opposite side of Thor's body, and gives a fierce tug to let the metal case force his torso to turn away from him. Long enough the meaty arms of this man aren't a problem while he steps his foot off the edge of the pier, and drops into the water below.

He won't emerge for a long few moments, and when he does, it's about twenty or thirty yards from where he first dropped in, leisurely back stroking off into the bay, one hand coming up to shoot Thor a one finger salute. Might want to shed all that fancy metal and heavy hammer nonsense before coming after him, by the way.

[thorndergod]

On the battlefield, he'd have a lot of options for dealing with someone coming at him. Even in Tevinter he'd have a great many options for dealing with an elf that thinks themselves above a human. Here? He's on foreign soil trying to not get on the wrong side of foreign powers. The elf isn't actually attacking, which means Thor doesn't wind up trying to defend himself.

...but the elf is seemingly intending to break curfew, and Thor doesn't have to get into the water to slow him down. He smiles at the offered finger, holding up a hand that's crackling with lightning and letting the elf see it for a moment before casting directly at the elf. It's controlled, he's not going to knock out or kill the impertinent fool, today at least, but it's going to hurt, and going to give his counterparts on the other side of the channel time to get into position if Iorveth drags himself out over there.

Next time they meet will be fun.

[aenseidhe]

Iorveth wasn't trying to attack him, or this would have been very different. He's hardly a novice on a battlefield either, be it armed or simply hand to hand. The goal was just to get the man's beefy hand off his person, because it offends him like as would anyone getting manhandled like a child. However, given the hammer and breastplate, he wasn't expecting magic to come from this oaf either.

Motherfucking mages. Yeah, being electrocuted is not a great feeling, but also not the first time he's experienced it, because, you know, motherfucking mages. There's a moment of jerking spasms in the water, his muscles seizing up in atrophy, and he sucks in a deep breath before giving up on fighting it. The elf's head dips under the water and... doesn't come back up. At all. Maybe Thor accidentally killed him?

Or maybe he sunk to the bottom, pushed off the sea floor once feeling came back to his legs, and swam along the darker depths of the water towards the docks themselves, pushing along the sand and rock to accelerate and cover more distance faster than he would swimming along the top, with the current and rocking waves of the boats fighting him. Holding his breath isn't much of an issue, and this is hardly the first time in a century, while acting as officer of a unit focused on stealth movements and subterfuge, to do something like this.

Should Thor takes a speedy jog to the opposite end of the docks, and look underneath piers and behind boats for his head to pop up, he'll thankfully avoid the assumption that he just made this bitch drowned at sea. Iorveth's red-swathed head will come up against about a hundred yards or more on the other side of a boat's hull, spot Thor there, and immediately duck back down to take cover from another lightning bolt behind ship's base. Back under he goes, trying to circle around to another side of the island without his new stalker friend, but we'll see.

[thorndergod]

He knows lightning, knows what force he used, knows control and even so, when the elf doesn't come back up right away Thor feels a flash of concern. Not for the elf, of course. It's for the mess that will come down here. He has a mission to complete, and while no one in Tevinter would bat an eye at an elf dying, the Inquisition might be another matter.

And yet... Thor has never murdered someone. He has never taken a life outside of the heat of battle, where it's fair and right to kill, and the thought of doing so now, even by accident, even an elf, doesn't sit well with him.

It's with no little haste that he pulls off his heavy breastplate and moves toward the water, searching for any signs of air bubbles or the elf himself. A flash of movement catches his eye and he turns to spot the elf. Relief that he will forever claim was simply due to avoiding complications wells up, and is promptly replaced by determination. Thor picks up his armor and sets it down by his post, asks his fellow guard to keep an eye on it, and trots after the elf. It's a game, now.

Thor scoops up a few rocks as he moves and casts a little lightning into them one at a time, tossing them into the water, probing for the elf.

[aenseidhe]

Fucking. Mages.

Those little rocks, while they don't particularly hurt much, are an incredible annoyance, but Thor's right - this is a game, now. His intention was never really to break curfew, as he'd rather not bring trouble to Beleth while she's still in recovery, and Val attempting to issue disciplinary actions to him is just asking for a brawl to happen.

For the sake of mischief, Iorveth continues the direction he'd been going, enduring the lightning rocks here and there, and pops up one more time for air, ducking under again sharply when Thor inevitably rounds the ship to spot him. Then, sink to the bottom, holds his breath in to leave no air bubble path, and shoots off sharp in the opposite direction, underneath the cover of several ships all crowded into the port and the piers. it's three, four, five ships he passes headed the other direction, before surfacing at the anchor chain of one large one.

Quickly, he scales up the chain, hauling himself over the railing and ducking low to hide behind sailors and cargo. a few coins are passed to one of the sailors to trade him bandannas - Iorveth's deep red for this man's blue - and he tugs off his shirt to leave it next to the mast, looking mostly like any of the other crew at this point. Stealth has ever been a prime skill of his, and he makes his way to one of the mast beams, waits for the crew to be otherwise distracted, and grabs onto the rigging. Climbing it is even easier than scampering up trees like he would in the Flotsam forests, trailing humans on the paths below through the branches above.

He'll be perched up at the top of the main mast, crouched on the crossbeam with a sail tugged over his shoulders - if Thor wants to strike him with lightning, he'll be setting fire to the ship's sails as well. For now, he'll just wait there, watching. Time for Where's Waldo.

[thorndergod]

He sees the elf come up and tosses more of the little stones, testing, searching. Waiting. He had never been part of hunting down fugitive slaves, but more than a few qunari raiding bands had needed to be found and dealt with.

The elf is good. Thor is also good.

He searches for signs of movement, listens for any splashing, keeping the corner of his gaze on his fellow guards. They don't react and he frowns. Of course they don't. They're Southern. He walks along the water's edge for several more moments, searching, before it he wonders if he hasn't been mislead. Thor turns and heads back, searching along the docks.

Movement up high draws his eye and he spots a figure squatted up high. The figure is the right shape and inactive while everyone is bustling about, in a place he doesn't need to be for a docked ship that isn't about to depart. Thor strolls closer, squinting to see better. It appears to be the elf.

Thor waves, grinning. He's treed the elf.

[aenseidhe]

Treeing an elf is never a sign of success, not when it's a Scoia'tael elf. Thankfully, this game has nothing to do with sharpshooting, or Iorveth would've picked him off from his perch already. The grin Thor gives him is reflected back, wave mimicked as well.

And then he... sits himself down, legs dangling off the beam, feet swinging idly while watching the sailors work below, seeming content to hang out on his perch. Maybe starts whistling a little tune as well. Thor's right that no one really needs to be this high into the rigging on a docked ship, but it isn't the only one in the port. Kirkwall is a port town, and there's constantly marine traffic going on, the masts over differing only barely avoiding meeting in several places. This may as well be a forest canopy to Iorveth.

Several minutes pass, of just observing the crew on the ship, the guards patrolling the docks, staring down at whatever Thor's up to, until a certain pattern comes up - two ships pulling in nearby, another just now having pushed off into the bay, and one more, further out, on it's way away from the island.

Standing, the elf is still whistling, but tightening the straps that hold his bow and swords to his back, reaching out to cut a spare length of rope from something tied off, eyes on the ships moving gradually into the places he wants them. What comes next looks like some Assassin's Creed bullshit. Bolting, Iorveth sprints down the crossbeam, balance apparently not an issue he's concern with, and leaps across the empty space between one mast crossbeam and the next, over the dock below. He makes his way from one ship to the next the same, sometimes catching the next beam with just hands on the edge to haul himself up, or catching himself in the rigging, grabbing sails or rope to swing himself around. From one ship to the next, it's like a step ladder through the port, until he sprints down the upper deck of the last one before the ship headed out, hopping railings and running along the prow, before diving off the figurehead.

Only a short few strokes underwater are enough to have him surface next to the dangling anchor, grabbing hold to swing up to one of the cannon shutters, about to climb inside the lower deck for cover. Of course, he'll probably hop off once he feels like his point is made, but not quite yet.